Use a term from the thesaurus (i.e., MeSH or subject heading list) for searching.
Use the Related Articles or Similar Articles feature.
Check for missing or incorrect field qualifiers.
Remove terms that are unlikely to be used by an author.
Replace terms that are too general or too specific.
Increase the number of synonyms or alternatives for a term.
Use a truncation symbol at the end of a term to pick up variant endings.
Try running the search on earlier years (back files) of the database.
Try a different database.
Too Many References
Choose the most specific subject headings or most significant key words.
Use subheadings to narrow the focus of the subject heading if appropriate.
Increase the number of search concepts that are ANDed together.
Use fewer synonyms for terms.
Make sure synonyms are grouped within parentheses (term_a1 OR term_a2 OR term_a3) AND term_b.
Make a term from the thesaurus (i.e. subject heading list or controlled vocabulary) the main focus of the article ("major" in PubMed and "focus" in CINAHL).
Limit to review articles.
Limit your search to type of article, language, age group, current years, etc.
Ask for significant words to be in the TITLE of the article.
